UPDATE 2-Traveler from Mali tested for Ebola at New York hospital

NEW YORK, Nov 20 (Reuters) - A traveler from Mali was being tested for Ebola infection on Thursday at Bellevue Hospital, with results expected later in the day, health officials in New York City said.

Due to the patient’s symptoms and travel history, the person has been placed in isolation, the officials said in a statement. The officials gave few details about the person.

“An individual who came to the United States from Mali, a country with limited Ebola transmission, was taken to HHC Bellevue Hospital Center today,” the statement said.

Mali shares a border with Guinea, one of three West African nations hardest hit by the virus. The worst outbreak of Ebola on record has killed at least 5,420 people out of at least 15,145 cases reported since March, mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Six people in Mali have died so far from Ebola, according to the World Health Organization.

The city health department has designated Bellevue, the country’s oldest public hospital, as the facility where any suspected Ebola patients in New York would be transferred.

Last week, the hospital discharged a New York doctor cured of Ebola, which he contracted treating patients in Guinea while working with the humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders. (Reporting by Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Sandra Maler and Will Dunham)